


leave a dream where the fallout lies

by bittereternity



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Harvey does not like being betrayed, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, One-Sided Relationship, Schmoop and Angst, Unrequited Love, hints of Mike/Rachel, of sorts, post-season 2 finale, self-deprecation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 21:29:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/872157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittereternity/pseuds/bittereternity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike speaks first. Harvey remains silent. This has always been their story.</p><p>Or, Mike and Harvey try to communicate through silences. After all, it's all they have left. [Post S2]</p>
            </blockquote>





	leave a dream where the fallout lies

*

The trouble is, you think you have time.

\- Anonymous

*

Mike is the first one to break the silence.

Mike doesn’t like prolonged silences. Silences are lurking shadows; reminders of voids left behind that can never be filled, people long gone who will never return to him, and dreams broken that he never was aware of having in the first place.

Harvey has always been better at staring people down, at looking straight into people’s eyes until he can fish out their deepest, darkest weaknesses, until they have no choice but to look away.

Except Mike. Always except Mike.

Mike fills silences with his voice, tries to wedge his emotions, the sounds of his laughter into every silence that Harvey leaves behind. Mike is everything he isn’t, has never been, can never try to become.

Mike speaks first. Harvey remains silent.

This has always been their story, even before.

*

“Harvey?” Mike’s voice shakes a little, and Harvey can see a fine tremor running down his hand. “Say something,” he implores.

Harvey crosses his desk and sits back down on his chair.

“Harvey, please say something,” Mike leans forward on his desk and bends down, trying to make direct eye-contact with him.

He fixes his gaze at a point just above Mike’s forehead and presses his fingers against his chair as subtly as possible.

“Harvey?” Mike sounds like something has broken within him. It tugs at a remote corner of Harvey’s heart; he can easily picture the look on Mike’s face, his half-opened mouth, the rumpled state of his hair, the panic barely hidden in his expressions. It would be easy, so, so _so_ easy to look at him, to tell that it’s alright, to tell him that he’s forgiven. It would be so easy to lose himself.

Instead, he keeps staring ahead with his jaw clenched shut, keeps looking straight ahead without blinking until the corners of his eyes begin to sting.

Seconds later, he hears Mike’s footsteps fade further and further away until the door creaks very slightly and he can’t hear them anymore.

Harvey has always been better at being silent, anyway.

(this is a pattern. pay attention, pay attention.)

*

In the end, this is how it begins:

It’s late when Mike comes, well _barges,_ into his office when he’s pretending to read an email on his laptop.

Harvey is tired, has been exhausted for a very long time. Reality has been slipping through his fingers the whole day, the whole month, and he isn’t willing to lose this final, tenuous grasp that he has left.

This time, he decides he will be the one to speak. This time, he will make amends, be the bigger man, be _human._ He takes a deep breath, stands up and crosses his desk to stand in front of Mike.

He isn’t very good at first steps, but damn if he’s going to let this slip through as well. Harvey has always protected his own, now it’s time to cherish them as well.

“Mike,” he begins. “I know what I said before and I may have overreacted a little bit.”

He looks down briefly and misses the stricken look on Mike’s face.

“Harvey,” Mike tries to cut him off but he’s faster, better, filled with the need to say it out loud.

“I know you were just following Jessica’s orders,” he continues. “I know you didn’t have a choice. I was angry about the whole bet with Darby and the merger and I took it out on you.”

“Harvey.”

“You were trying to help me, I realize that. In your misguided, naïve way, you were thinking of the best way to help me out. I’ve had time to understand this from your point of view and I realize that now.”

“Harvey!” Mike’s voice is as close as he can possibly get to a scream. It resounds within the stillness of his office.

“ _What?_ ” Harvey shouts back. “I’m trying to apologizing here, Mike, goddamn!”

Mike exhales through his teeth. Harvey turns at the _hiss_ and takes in Mike’s appearance for the first time. His collar and the first two buttons of his shirt are unbuttoned, there are faded marks on his face from something pressing against his cheek, there are finger-shaped marks on his wrists which will fade only to leave faint bruises.

Harvey closes his eyes. Outside, New York rains around him, splattering raindrops against his windows. There’s a storm raging outside, gales of wind blowing through the city, knocking over trashcans and blowing away leaves and stray newspapers and piercing the skin.

There’s a storm raging inside too. There are tears glinting in Mike’s eyes, reflected against the relative darkness of his office. There are traces of lipstick smudged around the corners of his lips.

Mike says, “I told her, Harvey.”

Mike says, “Please say something.”

Mike says, “Harvey, _please_ ,” and all Harvey wants to do is laugh. Laughter bubbles underneath his skin, hits at his chest and he has to press his fingernails into his palm to keep himself from laughing aloud because here Mike is, the man he’s invested every part of himself into, standing in front of him with tears in his eyes and words that translate into _I’m sorry if my actions hurt you_ and never, never _I’m sorry for what I did._ And he wants to laugh out loud, laugh with all the hysteria he can muster because isn’t this just what wanted, really, a miniature version of himself who would value his job more than he values humanity.

Except Mike. Always except Mike.

Mike, who is so genuinely _good_ that it makes Harvey’s heart ache, who will sacrifice himself for the sake of his compassion, who lets his emotions, his sense of _verity_ dictate the course of his life. Mike, who ruins Harvey every single day merely with his smiles and his kindness.

This isn’t what he wanted, not ever.

Harvey grits his teeth and stares straight ahead. All of a sudden, he’s terrified that if he tries to laugh, the sound that’ll come out wouldn’t be a laugh at all.

*

In another world, another lifetime, Harvey likes to think that he would’ve _shown_ Mike how he felt. He would have listened to Mike more, or sometimes given him the opportunity to simply _talk._ He would’ve let Mike know that he was valued, that his opinions mattered, that he was treasured for more than his eidetic memory and excellent analytical skills. Maybe, just maybe, he would’ve bought Mike those chocolate donuts he loves so much just to see his eyes light up. Maybe he would’ve invited Mike over for a _Die Hard_ marathon. And if Mike would have fallen asleep, he would have wrapped a blanket around him and cooked breakfast for him the next morning if that meant he could watch him wake up.

Now, here, Mike walks out of his office and he says nothing. He doesn’t shout, doesn’t get angry, doesn’t ask anything along the lines of _what happened between you and Rachel._ Harvey doesn’t ask questions when he knows he isn’t going to like the answer.

In another lifetime, Harvey would’ve tried his best to show Mike how he felt, would’ve tried his best to convey: _I’m not sure I’m entirely capable of it but this --_ you -- _come closest to whatever love might be._ He would’ve never asked Mike, though; would’ve never deluded himself enough to think that there might be the slightest possibility of Mike loving him back.

And now, and then, and always, he loves Mike enough to never let him know, loves him enough to realize that Mike has always been worth far more than what he can offer.

*

Donna greets him the next morning near the elevators and he sighs. Donna is Rachel’s friend. She’s always the one to know.

“What do you know?” he asks her. There’s no point in delaying the inevitable, never with her.

“Did Mike talk to you already?” She answers with a question of her own.

Harvey’s voice holds the slightest hint of a warning. “ _Donna_ ,” he trails off.

She sighs. “Rachel told me that they’re getting back together.”

Her words feel like a slap on his face and the tremor of pain that runs through him is so raw, so _physical_ that it leaves him astounded. Hearing the words out loud doesn’t make it any easier, doesn’t make it any less painful than it already is in his head. He lets out a low, sharp breath.

Donna stops in her tracks and turns to look at him. In that moment, he knows he’s managed to divulge far more than necessary.

“Harvey?” she frowns.

He sighs. “He told her,” he says, three short, monosyllabic words that make him want to punch a hole through the wall or rip something in pieces.

Donna searches his face even as he knows that he’s not displaying any kind of emotion, not anymore.

“Harvey,” she breathes. Suddenly, he is tired, tired of being recycled, of being the postscript on the last page of everyone else’s story, of being stuck in a nightmare from which there is no awakening in sight.

“I’m late for my meeting,” he murmurs and leaves her behind in the hallway.

*

It would be so easy, Harvey thinks, to be angry. It would be in his nature, after all, to carry a grudge, to let Mike know day in and day out that this is the worst form of betrayal there is, that he deserves more, _more_ than this for putting his own life on the line time and time again. It would be so easy to cut off ties with Mike, to look him in the eyes and say _we’re done_ and _how could you betray me like this_.

It would be so easy to be angry,

Then he thinks of the stricken look on Mike’s face, his desperate need to win Harvey’s approval, his naïve notion that he can _fix_ others with sheer positivity. He knows that the moment he says those words, Mike’s expression will close off, his face will fall, his jaw will drop, his shoulders will slump and he will look devastated. And there’s the thing, really, the crux of it: that he cannot bear to see Mike broken down, cannot bear to see him being hurt by cruel vindication because for all of Mike’s shortcomings, he’s never cruel, never deliberately hurtful, never vindictive in a way Harvey can often be.

He cannot see the misery in Mike’s eyes and know that he put it there. And anger, his anger can never be a replacement for his hurt, can only be a temporary form of scar tissue over a gaping void that will never be filled. It takes work to be angry, to be impassive in the face of hurting those he loves.

Harvey is just so, so very tired.

He knows that Mike thinks that he owes his life to him, that he bases every iota of his success on one decision he took months back. Harvey won’t tell him that _he_ ’ _s_ the one who is in debt, that he can never be thankful enough for teaching him what it’s like to be human, that he’s unsure if he will ever come to resent Mike for making him _feel_.

He won’t tell him that Mike doesn’t owe him shit.

Mike isn’t his mother. They were never in any form of a relationship to begin with. He isn’t his father. The only betrayal here is the one committed by his heart, going against all his principles and falling in love, anyway.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

*

Mike isn’t Harvey’s mother.

Mike isn’t –

\--Harvey’s.

Harvey’s eyes sting but they remain dry, always, always.

*

Donna lets himself into his office at the end of the day with two glasses and a bottle of wine. She shrugs when he raises an eyebrow at her and pushes a glass of wine towards him.

They drink in silence for a while before: “how long?” she finally asks.

Harvey sighs and sets his glass back on the table. “I didn’t know there would be any conversation involved in this activity.”

“Harvey,” Donna chides.

His fingers tighten around the stem of his glass. “I can think of no real answer that won’t sound pathetic,” he replies.

She watches him silently over her drink. “Have you talked to him about it?”

This time, he sets his glass down with force. “We’re done with this conversation,” he tells her.

“You don’t know how he feels because you’re not giving him a chance to explain,” she insists. Donna leans forward until they’re sharing the same personal space. “You’re not giving _yourself_ the chance to be happy.”

Harvey breathes out a laugh. To his own ears, it sounds horrible and convoluted but he laughs nonetheless, because he loves Donna, really; because he doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve someone as supportive and sympathetic as her and he hopes that she knows that.

Somehow, he suspects that she does.

“ _Donna_ ,” he catches his breath. “You say that like I still have something left to lose.”

He can hear her breath hitch and when he looks at her, there are tears in her eyes that she will vehemently deny later. “You have me,” she reminds him. It’s always been a statement, never a question.

He catches her wrist across the table. She feels strong against his skin, reliable and alive against the crumbling feeling inside himself. “Yeah,” he intones. “Yeah.”

*

The truth is: there was never a single, defining moment of realization of his love for Mike. It was a gradual process, spread over days and weeks and months and borne over late-night work-related calls, movies and pizzas and pranks that light in Mike’s eyes when he discovers the joy in simplicity. Because Harvey has always been the one to love much too fast, fall far too hard, invest everything of himself into an emotion that he doesn’t even comprehend without expecting anything in return.  

Perhaps, Harvey thinks, this is how he was destined to be destroyed, to be ruined. By doing something as simple, as mundane, and as ordinary as loving.

He didn’t fall for Mike on a particular day. It was a series of moments, gradually interwoven together in a web of affection and devotion, intimacy and sacrifice, destruction and devastation until he could no longer find his way out.

It was simple, really, the beginning:

One day, Mike walked into his office, smiling and waving a file, and suddenly Harvey couldn’t breathe.

*

He doesn’t let Mike go.

It’s a selfish decision, in the end. He doesn’t let him go because having him, having proof his existence, seeing him in a tangible form has to be worth more than never seeing him again. He owes Mike at least that much.

He sees them together a few days later on his way back from lunch. They’re a few feet ahead of him, and Rachel leans on the bench to whisper something in Mike’s ear. He reaches for her hand and lets out a startled laugh, open and loud and freer than Harvey’s ever heard before.

He keeps walking amongst the New York crowd and they don’t notice him. They are facing each other, eyes closed and laughing over their own words. He is a part of the crowd, not to be singled out, never to be searched for.

He moves forward and the sound of Mike’s voice stays with him, haunts him every moment and reverberates in his ear.

Mike laughs. Harvey remains silent.

This will always be their story, even after.

*

**Author's Note:**

> i swear, i wrote most of this while i was half-asleep . i woke up a couple of days back to a new document with a bunch of words i can't really remember typing out and i've been trying to edit it into something tangible since. oh dear, hope this isn't too OOC.


End file.
